Each year more than 42,000 people are killed and more than 3 million are injured in more than 6 million motor vehicle accidents on the nation's roads according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Association (NHTSA). In its most recent 2005 report, the NHTSA estimates that driver distraction is contributing to 20-30 percent of all motor vehicle crashes or 1.2 million accidents each year. A 2002 Harvard Center for Risk Analysis suggested that the rise in deaths and serious injuries and damages is attributable to the fast growing pool of cell phone users with 85 percent of users admitting to cell phone use while driving. Another study found that the risk of vehicle accidents is four times greater when motorists are using cell phones and produce the equivalent effect of reduced physical control and mental inattentiveness as individuals having reached 0.08 percent blood alcohol level, the legal limit in most states for driving under the influence. Virginia Tech Transportation Institute's 2005 study reported that hand-held wireless devices were among the highest distraction-related factors in crashes and were the leading distraction-related factor in near crashes.
Early researchers believed that hands-free phones were safer to use than hand-held phones. Recent studies have shown that this is assumption is untrue and that earlier assumptions may have offered motorists a false sense of safety. The mechanism by which cell phone conversations interfere with driving performance is not based on whether the motorist is using a hands-free or a hand-held device but rather by attentional interference, the diversion of attention from the driving task to the cell phone conversation itself. In neurophysiology, this competition between visual and auditory stimuli is known as dual-task competition. Dual-task competition occurs when auditory tasks unrelated to the visual task are introduced. As a result, the degree of attentional distraction depends on the complexity of the driving task and how engaged the driver is to the cell phone conversation.
Recognizing the severity of this problem to public safety, 17 of the 50 states in America have introduced legislation that restricts or bans cell phone use while driving. The NHTSA is lobbying to have all 50 states adopt restrictions on cell phone use while driving. Similar restrictions and bans have been adopted by both developed and underdeveloped countries around the world, including UK, France, Germany, Finland, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, India and many others. Fines are commonly the method of encouraging those who violate the cell phone use restrictions. In New Delhi, India, motorists who are found talking on their cell phone while driving have been imprisoned.
With the emergence of more and more wireless services and applications, the likelihood of using the cell phone and other wireless communication devices in a moving vehicle will continue to rise. It is necessary to put in place guidelines in which users are able to take advantage of their increasingly sophisticated services but at the same time ensure that public safety is not compromised. The reliance on public education may not be adequate because of the convenience of cell phone communications. Furthermore, infringement on restrictions and bans is difficult to monitor, making it difficult for such legislation to be enforced.